Equity Trust parent reports strong mortgage growth

Equity Financial Holdings Inc., the parent company of Equity Trust has reported strong growth in its mortgage business for the first quarter of this year.

Equity Financial Holdings Inc., the parent company of Equity Trust has reported strong growth in its mortgage business for the first quarter of this year. The company’s interim report shows that for the three months to the end of March mortgage originations were up 50 per cent from the previous quarter and 13 per cent higher than a year earlier (to $28,676,000). Its mortgage book stabilized at $294,398,000, down 1 per cent from the end of 2014. CEO Michael Jones commented: "In the first quarter of 2015 our mortgage originations increased 50% compared to the previous quarter, demonstrating our improving capacity to originate new loans and our mortgage loan portfolio stabilized after a period of decline that began in early 2014.” He highlighted senior management changes made in the last year, a new sales and marketing team and significant improvement in underwriting and risk management infrastructure.